author looking for hacking info

[authornothacker]

Greetings!  I am writing a novel, and want the technical aspects to be realistic.  I am hoping that members here might not mind answering a few questions from time to time.  I am not looking for step by step instructions, just enough info and description to make certain passages authentic.  Here are a few questions off the bat to give an idea.  If this is in the wrong forum or if this solicitation is unwelcome, then moderators please feel free to move or delete.




1.  If you had a very tech savvy group looking to engage in fairly regular, or even persistent group chat, what service would they choose?  I want a service that has enough security that when someone unexpected shows up in their group chat they are rather alarmed.


2.  One idea I had was skype, invite only, with password on the chat.  How hard would that be to break into? Mainly using for messaging, not voice or video.




3.  One character does computer repair...his own small business, just out of his home.  I want him to be placing some malware on the machines he services so that they mine bitcoins for him.  Now, over a few years he probably does not access more than...I dunno...two or three hundred systems, though he could write the malware to spread somehow.  Point being, he is not going to get rich doing this, but it's free income.  Assuming the two or three hundred consumer grade machines, what's a realistic value for the bitcoin he might mine?  I know there are several variables, but could he make a couple hundred dollars a month or would that be unreasonable?  What if he accessed a few small businesses so that we could up the number of machines? No, I will not ask for an actual program to do this, though the anatomy/ pseudocode of such a script  might be helpful. Or is this not even realistic to begin with?

Very long first post...don't mean to be rude. Thanks for any interest!

[proxx]

Greetings!  I am writing a novel, and want the technical aspects to be realistic.  I am hoping that members here might not mind answering a few questions from time to time.  I am not looking for step by step instructions, just enough info and description to make certain passages authentic.  Here are a few questions off the bat to give an idea.  If this is in the wrong forum or if this solicitation is unwelcome, then moderators please feel free to move or delete.




1.  If you had a very tech savvy group looking to engage in fairly regular, or even persistent group chat, what service would they choose?  I want a service that has enough security that when someone unexpected shows up in their group chat they are rather alarmed.


2.  One idea I had was skype, invite only, with password on the chat.  How hard would that be to break into? Mainly using for messaging, not voice or video.




3.  One character does computer repair...his own small business, just out of his home.  I want him to be placing some malware on the machines he services so that they mine bitcoins for him.  Now, over a few years he probably does not access more than...I dunno...two or three hundred systems, though he could write the malware to spread somehow.  Point being, he is not going to get rich doing this, but it's free income.  Assuming the two or three hundred consumer grade machines, what's a realistic value for the bitcoin he might mine?  I know there are several variables, but could he make a couple hundred dollars a month or would that be unreasonable?  What if he accessed a few small businesses so that we could up the number of machines? No, I will not ask for an actual program to do this, though the anatomy/ pseudocode of such a script  might be helpful. Or is this not even realistic to begin with?

Very long first post...don't mean to be rude. Thanks for any interest!

1,2 - Regular hangout is on IRC  , look that up. But for secure communication IRC might not always be a logical choice, mind that public services are alway's bound to local law , in most cases this is a bad thing.
Skype, hell no.

3 - depending on the numbers and GPU quality it is plausible , it is what they would call a botnet.
I would say spreading it in the fashion you describe wont get you thousands of machines quick, kinda silly in a way.

[authornothacker]

Thank you for that reply. 

I was originally going to go with IRC but read that it was not too secure.  Google chat?  Just need some service that would surprise a tech savvy person if their group chat found itself with an uninvited guest. I can also make up these services, but for now wanted to go with the real world stuff.

[proxx]

Thank you for that reply. 

I was originally going to go with IRC but read that it was not too secure.  Google chat?  Just need some service that would surprise a tech savvy person if their group chat found itself with an uninvited guest. I can also make up these services, but for now wanted to go with the real world stuff.

Look google,microsoft,facebook etc etc etc , noone that has security in mind would ever use these channels, they leak to gov. around the globe.
IRC can be very secure, more so than any of those named above.

[authornothacker]

Looks like diminishing returns for Bitcoin botnets.  May drop the idea or I could set this a few years ago.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/24/bad_news_malware_infections_are_mining_bitcoin_good_news_theyre_not_making_any_money/


I like the idea of IRC just because it is a service that most readers would not even be familiar with and has a sort of "techxotic" feel to it.  So if it is possible to keep an IRC room fairly secure from outside interference I will go with that.  My initial research led me to believe that someone security conscious might not use IRC. 

They are not (initially at least) worried about government hacks but it needs to be surprising enough that someone breaks in that they begin to suspect one another.

[authornothacker]

Dropping bitcoin mining.  Would there be some advantage to only spreading a  spam botnet via direct access to the machines he services?  I like the idea of his doing something illicit (but not particularly harmful to the victim) on the machines he directly services.   He's not a bad guy, just cynical and wanting to generate some cash off of naive grannies and other computer newb clients.

[madf0x]

Looks like diminishing returns for Bitcoin botnets.  May drop the idea or I could set this a few years ago.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/24/bad_news_malware_infections_are_mining_bitcoin_good_news_theyre_not_making_any_money/


I like the idea of IRC just because it is a service that most readers would not even be familiar with and has a sort of "techxotic" feel to it.  So if it is possible to keep an IRC room fairly secure from outside interference I will go with that.  My initial research led me to believe that someone security conscious might not use IRC. 

They are not (initially at least) worried about government hacks but it needs to be surprising enough that someone breaks in that they begin to suspect one another.

IRC can be locked down fairly tightly, especially if it's a private server. I would say though that realistically such a group is more likely to assume that someone dropped 0day to get in, not that someone let the unknown in.

However lets say you have an IRC server as a TOR hidden service, and only the group knows the .onion address. Attacks against TOR are possible, but mainly only for a nation state. So if some unknown broke into it, then the group would be more likely to believe someone in the group leaked the .onion address. Maybe not let the guy in, but someone was mostly talking when they shouldnt have been.

Of course that may set up a literary dilemma for you if you wanted all the members to actually be innocent, cause then youd have to figure out a way to justify the unknown dude finding the .onion address. Maybe he IS a nation state actor, just such a badass he found a flaw in the TOR hidden services setup, maybe he broke into one of the other members box and was watching what he was connecting to. All depends on what you have planned for the story

[authornothacker]

This is great.  Can you easily point me to some instructions on how one would set up an IRC network via tor?  I can google but maybe there is already a resource you are familiar with?  I don't want to DO it, just describe it with some accuracy.


Either one of the group leaked the address or there is a badass....a state actor or even worse.  That is the mystery that starts off the story and your comments have been very helpful.

[madf0x]

I don't know any specific guides off the top of my head. However you can use this link https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en

To learn a bit more about how TOR hidden services and under the manuals section is a link about setting up a web server as a hidden service. All youd need to do is instead of installing a webserver, youd be installing and configuring an IRC server.

[0E 800]

Cryptocat works well enough for secure chat. Albeit its not a public chat room.

[authornothacker]

You all have been very helpful.  A couple quick questions.


Let's say someone in the group set up an IRC server on the .tor network.  Someone breaks into a private chat they created there and leaves a comment that makes it clear that not only did the person break in but they were specifically looking for this group of people.  Is that enough for a tech savvy person to start to get pretty nervous?  Would he begin to assume government level?  Or maybe that someone in the group is under physical surveillance or sophisticated key logger? 

The idea is that I want this to seem extremely difficult but not impossible.  That way, either it is scary bad guys or they begin to distrust each other, assuming one of their own is behind it.

[HTH]

You all have been very helpful.  A couple quick questions.


Let's say someone in the group set up an IRC server on the .tor network.  Someone breaks into a private chat they created there and leaves a comment that makes it clear that not only did the person break in but they were specifically looking for this group of people.  Is that enough for a tech savvy person to start to get pretty nervous?  Would he begin to assume government level?  Or maybe that someone in the group is under physical surveillance or sophisticated key logger? 

The idea is that I want this to seem extremely difficult but not impossible.  That way, either it is scary bad guys or they begin to distrust each other, assuming one of their own is behind it.

Depends, they could have just joined, said something, then left, which would imply that some passwords/addresses were leaked. Might cause some distrust but certainly not some tinfoil hat, the gov is out to get us shit.

OR they could have gained Operator status (through an exploit in the network servces or an existing admins acct) and changed the channel topic to the message. This isn't inherently a gov thing, but would be harder to pull off and if the group in said book was already on edge about gov shit, might be enough to push them into believing that it was the government out to get them.

OR they could have changed the servers MOTD to this warning/message, same as above. Probably a big "WTF" moment.

This would make people start to lose their shit a tad bit more in my opinion.

[0E 800]

Maybe below links might help you concoct your story:

https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-the-nsa-targets-tor-users

http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/hacking-tor-online-anonymity/

https://anonops.com/mirc.html

[authornothacker]

Thank you for that reply and the links.  The bad guy will post again and will be conversing with them.  I think that rules out a couple of those options.  You have given me plenty to make the details convincing.  I will continue plodding along but will have more questions.

[madf0x]

Well seems like we will all be happy to help when you come back with more questions, just maybe send us an early copy when you go to publish